I think it is worth going back and considering that with the exception of a certain dramatic flourish, Santorum and Romney are not that far apart on how they view separation of church and state.

Separation of church and state, a defining issue in our history, is also a defining issue for Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. The emergence of Romney as the GOP frontrunner and the rallying of top religious right leaders to Santorum at a meeting in Texas over the Martin Luther King Day weekend casts the two politicians' views in sharp relief.

    Both candidates have staged high-profile speeches to define themselves in relation to John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 campaign speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association - a speech that has served as the model for how politicians balance religion and public life for a generation. But when they stepped up to the podium to define themselves in the bright light of history, each pandered to the religious right.

    Kennedy had sought to allay concerns about how he would navigate his Catholic faith and his constitutional responsibilities. "I believe in an America," he declared, "where the separation of church and state is absolute - where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote - where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference - and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

    "I believe in an America," Kennedy continued, "that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish - where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source - where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials - and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

    Romney similarly sought to allay concerns about his Mormon faith as he prepared to run for president in 2008.  He staged a major speech at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, where he was personally introduced by the former president. Romney at once sought to echo Kennedy -- who had said that while he embraced his faith, when it came to public policy, the church did not speak for him and he would not speak for the church, that he would be president of all of the people and that he would swear to uphold the Constitution.  In so doing, Kennedy dissolved some people's concerns about whether he harbored any divided loyalties to the Vatican, and the philosophy he articulated seemed to resonate widely.

    But Romney's task was very different.  He needed to simultaneously appeal to conservative Christians -- many of whom were not only explicitly anti-Mormon, but were opposed to any notion of separation of church and state. Romney cast himself within the broad American tradition of religious liberty, and of separation - and then he invoked the bogeyman.  "In recent years," he declared, "the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning.  They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God.  Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life."

    "It is as if," he darkly declared, "they are intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of secularism.  They are wrong.  The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square."

    In making this charge, Romney tapped a deep vein of religious right ideology -- attributing malevolent intentions and considerable power to "some" people, an unnamed "they" who are somehow seeking to foist a new (and nonexistent) religion of secularism on unsuspecting Americans - and subvert the will of the founding fathers to boot.  He didn't say who, and he didn't say how, or offer any facts in support of his claim. He didn't have to.  This was dog-whistle politics, intended for those with ears to hear it.